The Out Of Bounds mountain bike freeride festival hosted the 5th anniversary of the 26TRIX dirt jump contest. 60 riders from 17 countries rocked the dirt line located next to Bikepark Leogang’s gondola station to get a junk of the overall prize purse of 10,000 Euros. TSG`s Cameron McCaul took the most points for the FMB World Tour due to the “Gold Event” status of the 26TRIX. TSG`s Sam Pilgrim ended up 4th abd Amir Kabbani 8th.
After the qualifications on Friday, overall 16 riders made it into the finals. The slope was crowded on Saturday late afternoon, when the finals were about to be kicked off. The riders showed that they know a lot about competition tactics, showing their biggest tricks only during the finals. Not any of the big banger tricks had been seen in the training sessions before.
It was the Canadian Brandon Semenuk, who led after the first of two runs. He pulled a tailwhip at the first step up jump, a 360 at the step down, as well as an opposite 360 at the hip, to shoot into the “Airtime Line” (first double 11 meters distance, second 8 meters) and going big with a backflip x-up one foot and a truck driver at these two big doubles. The finished this run with a tailwhip before the last turn and a flipwhip and the finishing jump. Not an easy job for the competitors to beat this one of its kind clean run.
But it was CAMERON MCCAUL who proved to have the best combination of style and tricks this weekend: Backflip, barspin and tailwhip in the first section, Tailwhip and frontflip on the two biggest doubles, as well as a tailwhip and flipwhip at the end – all very clean and with extremely high amplitude. Brandon tried to get back on first position of the ranking but slipped the pedal once and ended on second place.
Other highlights of the finals were: SAM PILGRIM’s runs packed with backflip no handers and x-up one foots, 360 whips and flipwhips, as well as Yannick Granieri’s inverted 360 on the Airtime Line.
Also TSG rider AMIR KABBANI from Germany, who ended on 8th position, showed a great performance with backflip x-ups, 360 tailwhips and flipwhips. Cam’s brother, Tyler McCaul got a very special prize for the best trick of the weekend – a 360 down side whip at the last jump. Bikepark Leogang managing director Kornel Grundner handed him over 26 cans of the “TRIXX” beer from Eastern Europe.
THE TOP 10 RESULTS:
1st: Cameron McCaul (USA/Trek)
2nd: Brandon Semenuk (CAN/Trek)
3rd: Martin Söderstöm (SWE/NSBikes
4th: Sam Pilgrim (GBR/DiamondBack)
5th: Yannick Granieri (FRA/Commencal)
6th: Paul Basagoitia (USA/Kona)
7th: Andreu Lacondeguy (ESP/Kona)
8th: Amir Kabbani (GER/Mongoose)
9th: Graham Aggasiz (CAN/Kona)
10th: Tyler McCaul (USA/GTBikes)
